YEP, THEY GO IN THREE’S

Published by Rick on Tagged Uncategorized

When I first heard that adage about deaths of notable persons seeming to go in groups of three, it was in a particular week in 1988, when the three celebrities that died were pop star Andy Gibb (who had only five days earlier reached the ripe old age of 30), porn star John “The Wad” Holmes (43), and drag queen Divine (42), best known for their dual role in the original 1988 version of the film “Hairspray.” I’m not sure that’s the company Gibb expected to join in the after life.

There was a trio this past week of two musically gifted and very funny performers and a Hall of Fame baseball player that said goodbye to life on consecutive days. I never met the baseball player, but my partners and I opened for and hung out with both of the other two.

The first to go at age 79 was Country music satirist Richard “Kinky” Friedman, who among his many accomplishments claimed to be the first full-blooded Jewish person ever to play Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry. He mostly toured with his band The Texas Jewboys, appearing in 1976 on Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue tour and TV’s “Saturday Night Live.” We opened for him working without his band in early 1978 at The Catalyst in Santa Cruz, and sadly I only remember a scattered few things about the gig and about Kinky. He closed his set with his parody of Merle Haggard’s “Okie From Muskogee” entitled “Asshole From El Paso,” the only tune in his set that he didn’t write. For some reason, one set of lyrics from one of his other songs is still stuck in my memory 46 years later, where he managed to rhyme the word “boy” with the first words of the Hebrew blessing “Baruch ata Adonai.” Definitely one of the strangest rhyming couplets in recorded history. We did go out to a meal after the show, and he proved to be a lovely, very funny man who not only praised us, but paid for the meal! So much for that stereotype of Jews being miserly!

On the same day Kinky left us, we also lost Martin Mull at age 80. Mull had his most notable successes as an actor, but was also an excellent guitarist and comedian whose standup act lampooned many music personalities by name as well as many varied genres of music. He had already gained a cult following by the time he was hired to star in the late night talk show parody “Fernwood 2 Night,” and its sequel “America 2 Night,” which aired in three-month weeknight runs in 1977 and 78. “Fernwood” was itself a spin off from the soap opera parody “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” on which Mull had a recurring role. He also acted in films, most notably the murder mystery “Clue.” He was a regular in the final series of “Rosanne,” playing the gay character Leon Carp, and was also in “Arrested Development,” playing the character known as Gene Parmesan.

We opened for him on two occasions, once in 1978 in Santa Barbara, and the second time in 1981 at Sacramento Civic Auditorium. Though we didn’t hang out with him after either show, we hung with him in 1980 at the house of his manager, Larry Brezner, who also managed Robin Williams and Billy Crystal. As we were talking about our experiences as an opening act, he told us of a prank he pulled when he was touring as the opener for a very prominent singing group of the mid 1970’s. He noticed they had the same between-songs banter every night with little or no variation. On his final performance of the tour, he took about five minutes before introducing his last tune, and in rapid succession recited every single line of their dialogue. The audience couldn’t figure out what he was doing, but would find out soon enough. He finished the song, then left the stage. There was no break between him and the headliners, so they came out, sang their first song, and got the customary applause. They then began talking, and heard snickering from various members of the audience. As their set went on, the laughter kept escalating, and the group couldn’t figure it out. When they finally finished their set, they were clearly flustered by the strange response they were getting. Their road manager told them what Martin had done, but he was long gone, and they never spoke to him again.

The third person we lost over this weekend was the Puerto Rican baseball star Orlando Cepeda. This came as a crushing blow to San Francisco Giants fans, who were still reeling from the death of Willie Mays 10 days prior. I never met him, but I appreciated that he made the Hall of Fame (though not until 25 years after he had retired) despite a marijuana smuggling conviction in 1978 that put him in jail for ten months. He had been using cannabis for 13 years by then. When I moved to San Francisco and became a Giants fan, he was already on his third team since being traded from the Giants in 1966. The most personal level I could relate to him on was that about 10 years ago, he accepted my friend request on Facebook. He remained on my friends list until my account was hacked a few years ago. It’s been a tough year for Giants fans, compounded by the team spending a lot of money getting name players, and still sucking!

June 30th, 2024



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